ABSTRACT
Most of the extensive literature that exists on the production, distribution and use of tobacco regards it as essentially a passive commodity. Such a history tends to begin in the colonial era with the plant’s ‘discovery’ by Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries. To use social science parlance, accounts such as this are anthropocentric, focused solely on ‘human agency’, with tobacco provided with a ‘less-than-human’ role. This chapter proposes a less diffident role for tobacco in people’s lives. The march of tobacco has been the march of capitalism, the march of modernity and of a most peculiarly strong entanglement that has become increasingly recognized by the psychological term addiction. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
